The Coldness in People's Hearts
by Isabemily
Summary: It's cold outside, but Allison keeps walking. What happened on Monday is nothing she didn't expect, but that doesn't mean it's what she wished for. It's getting colder and colder, more and more snow is falling, and Allison doesn't move. But fortunately, somebody finds her. Rated for depression, maybe violence in later chapters. Allison/Bender
1. Chapter 1 - People's eyes

Hi :)

This is my first fanfiction, and English is not my mother tongue, so it is very likely that there are some mistakes...

I reeeeeeeeeally appreciate reviews. Sorry, it is a bit short, but it's kind of a prologue, so, yeah...

Please tell me if I should continue or write another oneshot. :)

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><p>People's eyes<p>

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><p>The darkness of the alleyway seems to swallow Allison. Her eyes aren't glistening under her messy hair, her steps are hardly audible. She feels incredibly small and vulnerable.<p>

The problem is: She understands, finally.

Giving Andy her trust, no, not only her trust, but herself, has been rewarded by something she experiences at home everyday: Disrepect, ignorance.

When she came to school on monday in her usual black hoody and skirt, looking up, expecting him to greet her and hug her or kiss her or something, he just knit his brows and laughed at her with his jock friends and vanished in the crowd.

Maybe, maybe he would have recognized her if she had dressed like Claire had shown her two days ago. But when she looked at herself in the mirror that morning, still suffering from the depressing thoughts of the night and a nightmare that had her parents replacing her with Claire in it, she couldn't bring herself to do it. To become like Claire.

It wasn't her. People don't change over night – not for the better, at least. Whatever that is.

So she grabbed her sweater and her skirt and dressed the way she always did. _It won't make a difference to Andy_, she told herself. _He knows how I am. He likes me for who I am. Not for my looks. I am the same Allison that I was in that detention._

Allison will never forget that look on Claire's face when she walked past her. It was not like Claire had wanted to talk to her or something, no – _You could have been so much_, her eyes seemed to say. _What did you do? I can't talk to you when you look all basketcase-like... Not in front of my friends._

So they are no friends. And Andy is not her boyfriend. She should have known it...

When she saw Brian, she didn't even make an effort to look him in the eyes. Enough rejection for one morning. And Brian seemed content talking to his nerd-friends anyway. He didn't look particularly disappointed.

_Everybody has friends_, Allison realizes. Andy has his jock-friends, Claire has her rich-and-stuck-up-girlfriends, Brian has his nerd-friends and Bender has his pot-smoking friends (she has seen them in the back of the schoolyard).

_Everybody has friends. Except me._

A tear rolls down her cheek. Her eyes are tired. Without any light. She is tired. She's had enough.

When she came home today, her mother sat at the kitchen table, doing whatever she was doing. She looked up from her work when she heard the noise of the door opening, and when she saw that it was her youngest daughter, her warm eyes became cold, her mouth a thin line. It happened very fast, like always, in a second she was focused on her work again, but for Allison, it felt like an eternity, the ice encircling the young girls weary heart.

And then the darkness was not only inside her, but also on the other side of her window, and it seemed to call out to her.

It is january, and the wind is pretty cold. Allison, however, feels the cold, but it is almost comforting, numbing her fingers and her legs and, at least a little bit, her thoughts. It starts to snow.

Allison finds herself walking through a park. Leafless trees, no peole at all, emptiness.

Slowly, Allison sits down, leaning against a tree. It feels nice. Her fingers are burning from the coldness, but she doesn't mind.

What Allison doesn't know is that there is somebody else out there in the middle of the night... Somebody who notices a little black bundle on the ground that doesn't move. It's freezing cold.


	2. Chapter 2 - Caring

Here I go again! :D

I finally found the time to write something again... finally... yeah... sorry... :D

Thanks for your review, Lebeau54. It motivated me a lot! :) You are my first reviewer ever! You are a LeBelle-fan, I guess? :D

Maybe this chapter didn't exactly turn out how you expected it. I hope you like it though! :)

Sorry for any mistakes! Make sure to review... It will motivate me a lot to go on writing - if that's what you want! :D

Chapter 2 - Caring

Allison's eyes snap open when something touches her shoulder. Something dark is above her-she can't see the moon. Her eyelids feel heavy, but she blinks, trying to find out what that thing is.

„Allison? Allison!" It's a strong voice, a one-of-a-kind voice, but her brain seems to be a bit frozen, and she isn't able to recognize it immediately.

So she squeals and presses herself against the tree, trying to get away from the stranger.

„Hey, it's me, basketcase! Hey, look at me!" The voice seems to be a bit concerned. Concerned about her?

„Who are you?" Allison croaked.

„You know, I think you've heard my voice once or twice before, I just called you 'basketcase', who do you think it is?"

„Bender...?"

„There you go! Come on, get up! What are you doing out in the cold at this time anyways?"

Allison tries to stand up, but her legs have gone dead and she falls heavily against Bender, who catches her and puts an arm around her waist to support her.

„How long exactly have you been sitting here...?" He sounds a bit annoyed, actually.

„For a while, I guess...", Allison whispers. „Who cares..."

She doesn't think he has heard the last part, but he answers: „I'm the one saying such things, remember? What's up with you?"

„Nothing."

„Sure. You know, I wouldn't ask you that if I knew the real answer was 'nothing'."

„It's... hard to explain. I don't know if you would understand."

Bender knits his brows. They walk in silence for a while.

„Where do you live?"

Allison points behind them.

„Don't want to go there, huh?"

They turns around and they walk in the opposite direction – in silence, again. Bender drapes his coat around Allisons shoulders. She doesn't make an attempt to put her arms through it, though.

„I'm invisible", Allison says so loud that it gives Bender a start.

„Normally I am. Nobody ever notices me."

„Well, I did... and if I didn't, you would probably be freezing to death under that tree right now."

„If noone ever notices me, it wouldn't make a difference to the others, would it?"

„It would make a difference to you!", he says. „I thought about it too, you know? But the others would have won then, right?" He laughs bitterly.

„When I said I'd seen you before. That's true. I've seen you on that bridge. You climbed onto the railing and stood there, staring down into the water like you'd been hypnotized by it. Somehow I knew you wouldn't do it. It didn't seem to be an Allison-like thing to do."

„Why not... Nobody would be surprised. People think I'm weird because I dress in black and hide behind my hair and don't talk to anyone. I guess I'm like... an outcast or something. It's always the outsiders who decide they've had enough."

„I don't think that's true. Some people hide their problems behind a facade, you know? So the others think they are okay."

„Like Claire, you mean?", Allison snorts. She removed Benders arm from her.

„Maybe. But... that's not my problem anymore. I thought, maybe there was more to her."

„She has been honest, at least. At least at the beginning. She told us we wouldn't be friends on monday."

„It didn't look like she would keep that promise at the end of the detention, though..."

„Life is a lot easier when you don't care about the others."

„It would be. Maybe. But, Allison... Seeing that you 'don't care about the others', and that was what I thought about you, too, originally, you are making a big deal about you not making a difference in the world because they don't care about you. Have you ever considered that, maybe, you have to care about someone so he or she cares about you, too?"

„You are right, I guess. But you also have to have someone care about you first, so you know what it means. You of all people should know better than anyone that it's not that simple, Bender.

That's my house. Thank you for walking me home, and for the coat." She hands it back to him. He slipps into it, trying to escape the coldness.

Allison opens the door and Bender catches a glimmer of her blue lips and pale eyes in the light before she closes the door again.

„I'm getting soft. What kind of conversation was that...?", he murmurs to himself.

He steps aside to look through the window. Allison walks past her mother, who is sitting at the kitchen table, working on something (in the middle of the night?) and looking up hopefully when she hears the steps. When she sees Allison, she gives her daughter an almost disgusted look and focuses on her typewriter again. Allison walks straight past her mum, eyes to the floor, and disappears in her room.

He doesn't really know why, but he hides behind a bush when a small car pulls up and a girl, perhaps a bit older than Allison, emerges from the passenger seat and walks into the house. A glance through the window shows her being greeted with a warm hug and a happy laugh by her mother. They sit down at the table and start talking, the typewriter seems to be completely forgotten.


End file.
